The Lure of the Elephant

To study the elephant is to fall under its thrall. Elephants loom large, both physically and psychologically, and the people who study them and work with them become their lifelong advocates. Researchers find much to admire in elephant society and in their temperament and actions. Although scientists were once reluctant to attribute emotions to animals, fearing the charge of anthropomorphism, today researchers writing about elephants speak freely of their loyalty, patience, devotion, courage, and cleverness, as well as their wrath.

The largest of land mammals is the African savanna elephant, weighing 9 tons (8,000 kg) or more and standing 13 feet (4 meters) at the shoulder, bulls being larger than cows. Asian elephants are smaller, about 6 tons (5,500 kg) and 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) tall. Elephants continue to grow for most of their lives. To sustain this huge body mass, an elephant drinks more than 26 gallons (100 liters) of water and eats more than 200 pounds (100 kg) of food each day; elephants are herbivores, consuming a variety of plant material, including the bark of trees. They range widely in search of food and water, sometimes destroying crops on nearby farms. They can easily uproot trees. Everywhere they exist elephants compete for resources with other animals and with humans. They fear no predators except man. While an injured or debilitated isolated adult might be attacked, a healthy adult is more than a match for any predator. An angry elephant can reduce a lion to rags in minutes.

The social bond

Elephants spend their lives in an extended family group that is headed by a matriarch, typically the oldest female. Also included in the family are her sisters and daughters, their calves, and pre-adolescent males. Grown males may visit the family for a time, but they spend most of their time alone or in the company of other males. Young elephants learn from the family what to eat, how to find water, how to react to other animals, how to respond to danger, and how they fit into the family hierarchy. The matriarch leads the group and decides where and when they will move as a herd. Everyone indulges the calves and protects them. Families in the same area know and recognize each other and usually interact peaceably. A lone elephant is a lonely elephant.

An elephant can live for 60 to 80 years. During their long childhood, the calves have many opportunities to observe and emulate the behavior of the herd and to learn proper “elephant etiquette.” When adolescent bulls move away from the family to join groups of males, they learn their place in the male hierarchy and observe the mating behavior of the dominant males. Males go through periods of heightened hormonal activity called musth, a Hindi word meaning “intoxicated.” They become excitable and irritable and may spar with other males. The more-experienced musth males help temper the behavior of males coming into musth for the first time. In a highly publicized incident, it was found that young male elephants in musth were wantonly attacking and killing rhinoceroses in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. These elephants were orphans, living in unnatural circumstances. When older bull elephants were introduced into their area, the social dynamic changed, and the rhino killings ceased.

Communication among elephants is varied and continuous. Elephants constantly touch and smell each other. They have temporal glands on the face, near the ears, that secrete a substance called temporin, which conveys information about their state, as does their urine. They can produce a broad range of vocalizations and trumpeting—up to 70 separate calls—and it is estimated that a female can recognize the voices of 100 other females. In addition, they produce sounds at frequencies below the range of human hearing—these have been compared to the rumbling lowest notes of a pipe organ. These infrasonic messages can travel over great distances through the ground as well as the air, enabling familes several kilometers apart, out of range of sight or smell, to track each other’s movements and condition. Elephants sense these sounds through their feet as well as hearing them. Much of the communication seems to be an attempt to convey reassurance and connectedness. Members of an elephant family are always aware of each other and know each other’s locations. Families will wait until all members are assembled before moving off.

Intelligence, compassion, and devotion

If an elephant’s face is marked with paint and the elephant looks into a mirror, it will touch its trunk to the paint on its face. This ability to recognize themselves in their reflections is considered a sign of high intelligence. And elephants do have remarkable memories, recognizing and exuberantly greeting other individuals after separations of many years, even decades. Likewise, they remember those who have injured or tormented them and will retaliate if they are pushed too far. Not only do they not forget, they do not forgive. Distress or alarm is rapidly communicated, and every individual takes part in the response. Any perceived threat to a calf is quickly countered by the entire family. Angry elephants will flatten buildings and destroy anything in their path.

If an elephant falls, others try to help it to its feet; if it becomes mired, others try to help it free itself. Elephants stay with injured or dying individuals and try to comfort them; they have even been seen helping other species of animals in distress. An elephant was observed helping a baby rhino trapped in deep mud; it repeated tried to move the calf even though the mother rhino charged it. Elephants recognize the skeletons of dead elephants, they handle and explore the bones—they ignore the bones of other animals. The 3rd-century Roman author Aelian stated in De Natura Animalium, “An elephant will not pass by a dead elephant without casting a branch or some dust on the body.” They remember the places where other elephants have died, and they linger there when they pass them.

“Managing” elephant herds

In their attempt to control the size of elephant herds, some African park managers practice “culling,” sometimes killing entire families at once. The by-products of this “harvest” are ivory, meat, and hides, which are sold to bring in income to the park; around this practice an industry of elephant processing develops. Sometimes only the older animals are killed, depriving the younger of their experienced role models and protectors. Some animal behaviorists believe that culling causes post-traumatic stress syndrome in the young elephants who have seen their family being massacred and butchered, instilling a fear and hatred of humans and a desire for revenge. The proper methods of elephant population management are of continuing controversy throughout Africa.

How Can I Help

Contribute to international conservation organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund or to the organizations listed above

Give to Elephant Family, an organization dedicated to saving the Asian elephant

Books We Like

Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir
by Joyce Poole

Coming of Age with Elephants: A Memoir tells the story of Joyce Poole, an American raised in Africa, who returned to Kenya at age 19 to study elephants under another elephant expert, Cynthia Moss, who had undertaken the long-term study of the huge elephants herds in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Every individual elephant is named and tracked throughout its life.

Poole’s memoir also traces her own maturation and the problems she faced as a scientist and as a woman in this world. There are difficult passages dealing with poachers and human predators. Nonetheless Poole remains a passionate advocate for elephants, and this book has become a classic in the field.

5 Replies to “The Lure of the Elephant”

Elephants are indeed wonderful creatures. They are, however, only one of many wild animals, birds, insects, grasses, trees and other organisms that live within a confined National Park. A National Park needs to be managed in order sustain ALL life within its borders. Elephants populations have unfortunately grown in considerable numbers in certain National Parks in Africa, such that they exceed the SUSTAINABLE carrying capacity of their habitats. When one has an overpopulation of elephants, the habitat is severely compromised because there is constantly diminishing plant cover which will expose more and more soil to the ravages of erosion. In the long term there will be no more food and therefore no elephants, no other animals, bird, insects and other organisms. Why should elephant have more rights than say a Kudu, a termite, even a tree?

I just love animals! And another news… I just found out that Manila Zoo has a cute elephant named Mali, and she is the only elephant in the Philippines! She has lived there for almost all of her lives, for more than 30 years. The zoo should feel like her sweet and cozy home now. But then, I read some articles in PETAAsiaPacific.com, and I noticed that Mali is in fact sad and lonely! Look at her here: https://www.facebook.com/FreeMali. She is like a prisoner, who cannot spend her days with her friends, roam in vast territories, and have delicious adequate food! She even suffers from foot problems. Why does she deserve this? 🙁 Please Help Her!